This Ministry of Education and Training report, hot off the press, confirms my estimate of the number of young Vietnamese studying overseas.  Since 90% are self-financing, this means that over a billion dollars are being invested each year in overseas education.  That’s nearly 1% of the country’s 2011 GDP.  (Stay tuned for a later post that attempts to provide a more precise estimate.)  According to the latest SEVIS quarterly update, there were 18,044 Vietnamese students – at all levels – in the US as of the end of December 2011.

The top five countries are:

• Australia
• United States
• China
• Singapore
• France

From the article… 

Over 100,000 Vietnamese students studied abroad in 49 countries and territories in 2011, according to the Ministry of Education and Training (MoET).

Of the total, around 90% of students pursued overseas training programmes based on their own funding, a 10-fold increase compared to a decade ago.

Sharp rise in number of Vietnamese students in the US

Vietnamese student numbers in the US rocketed in 2011 to 14,888 people. The country became the second most popular overseas study destinations after Australia, with 25,000 Vietnamese students.

They were followed by China with 12,500, Singapore with 7,000, France with 5,540 students, Russia with 5,000 and Japan with 3,500 students.

Last year, many universities in the US listed Vietnam as among one of the fastest emerging markets in terms of student attraction.

 Click here to read the rest.  The original Vietnamese article is entitled Việt Nam “xuất siêu” du học.